Jacob Bronowski and designer people

In a wonderful 1974 interview on YouTube with Michael Parkinson, Jacob Bronowski has a telling segment regarding the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, an infamous victim of the drink. Bronowski knew Dylan Thomas rather well. Parkinson asked whether Bronowski, a buttoned-up mathematician, ever regretted not living the Bohemian life of a gifted poet like Thomas.

“Of course I regret having never written poems as beautiful as Dylan Thomas,” Bronowski quipped. And the dialogue continued:

Parkinson: But then, well what about the irresponsibility, if one can put it, of the poet like Thomas, because although he lived in this style and created this magnificent poetry, he also killed himself, didn’t he, by doing it?

Bronowski: Well that was his look-out. [Nervous laughter from the audience]

Parkinson: Doesn’t he have a responsibility to those around him who love him too?

Bronowski: I think they accepted him for what he was; he really was a very splendid person. Of course I was very sorry when he killed himself, for what seemed to me ridiculous reasons. But you know, people are of a piece. You can’t think that you can go around in a kleptomaniac way like a shoplifter in the Almighty Supermarket, picking out something that you like here: “Oh I’ll have a little brain there” and so on … I’m reminded of McCarthy and the Committee for Un-American Activities when I was in America back in 1953 who kept on having great scientists in front of him and would say to them: “We understand about your being a great scientist, but why are you such a radical in politics? Couldn’t you be a nice conservative like me and Mr. Nixox.” [Audience laughter] And one couldn’t explain to them that being a scientist, and being a poet, being an original person, meant a very questioning, a very rebellious, and very uncomfortable way of life. And that’s what makes progress in the human race.

Bronowski’s answer, from a man born in 1908 and immersed in the quantum absurdities of science, seems different from what would have been given today. The 2018 answer would have focused on the sorrowful and negative aspects of Thomas’ behavior: “He was troubled man.” “He should have gotten help.” “He died too soon.”

All of which may well be true. But what in one instance is an outlet of self-hurt or outrage to society can in another instance be an outlet of self-expression and creation. What looks like suicide to us looked to Ferdinand Magellan a voyage of grand discovery for God. History can’t have Lincoln without his alleged depression. We can’t have Churchill without his brandy and cigars and imperiousness. We can’t have Picasso without womanizing. We can’t have da Vinci without his probable homosexuality. And we loved the character of Anthony Bourdain precisely because his experience seemed so rich and complex.

At various times, we may have wish to design the perfect human, and think that we can do so. But to realize this folly, remember that in various times and places, this designer human would look entirely different. Culture changes. Da Vinci’s homosexuality is not an issue in 2018, but as late as the 1950s in the United Kingdom, Alan Turing was forced to chemically castrate himself. So we may be wrong.

As Bronowski says above, “People are of a piece” – they are a whole, not the sum of their parts. We do not on high have the right answers about designing the optimal human, because no optimal human exists. We cannot purport to be able to go around in the “kleptomaniac way like a shoplifter in the Almighty Supermarkert” of human behavior and tendencies.

[B]eing an original person,” Bronowski says, means “a very questioning, a very rebellious, and very uncomfortable way of life. And that’s what makes progress in the human race.” Bronowski goes on by noting that it took some adventuresome monkeys to allow human culture to evolve and thrive.

Today, innovations like omnipresent surveillance may make it easier to enforce a McCarthy-ite cookie-cutter political correctness resulting in a drab, conformist, and stagnant human population. Of course, technology can also cut the other way by giving megaphones for those with odd viewpoints. Either way, we need to reject the premise of designer humans with a certain level of monkey-like ambivalance and resolve. And just as we cannot design the perfect human, we doubly shouldn’t try to design the perfect society.

In 2018, we neglect the role of adventure and chance and self-determination in human affairs at our own risk.